The present invention concerns beacon transmission systems and, in particular, systems and methods for enabling encryption and decryption of transmitted beacon identifiers.
Short-range beacons using technologies such as infrared, ultrasonics, near-field communications (NFC) and Bluetooth® have been used to determine proximity between a mobile listening device and a beacon. In an example system, a beacon transmitter broadcasts a signal containing its identifier (ID) and a mobile device, proximate to the beacon receives the signal and determines the proximity of the mobile device to the beacon based on characteristics of the received signal. The beacon ID may be a Bluetooth® beacon transmitted by a first device, for example a mobile telephone, that desirably maintains a close proximate relationship with a second device, for example a Bluetooth headset even when not in use. When these devices are separated, for example because the user has inadvertently left the phone on a restaurant table, the headset may emit an alarm.